Is Westin Heavenly Shower a Green Wash or a Greenwash?

Over a year after Lloyd told us about the US Department of Energy's plans to better enforce laws regulating shower water usage, it appears the laws still have no teeth. Alert TreeHugger tipster Ben sends us this photo of a poster in a Westin shower. In case you cannot read the small print in the image, the poster reads:"One of your Heavenly® Shower heads has been turned off in an effort to minimize water usage and protect one of our most precious natural resources. To experience the most out of your Heavenly® Shower, you can turn the second shower head on by pushing the small button behind the lower head."

Ben points out the irony in the message: "This ridiculous waste of water is rather upsetting particularly because they are attempting to convince people that they are being environmentally friendly with this absurd setup."

Dual-nozzle shower systems deliberately circumvent a federal law which limits the water a showerhead can deliver to a max of 2.5 gallons per minute. Although the law is decades old, a year ago the DOE announced that they would interpret the term "showerhead" to mean any system of "one or more sprays, nozzles or openings," in order to crack down on the high-end luxury showers delivering water at rates approaching that of a small waterfall.

Westin's Heavenly dual shower, which Westin also sells through their home collection, empowers guests to waste, in their own words, one of our "most precious natural resources" (plus the 40 to 80 thermal units of energy per year per shower nozzle which DOE is trying to save with their showerhead definition).

So which is it Westin? Refresh yourself with the most out of your Heavenly® Shower? Or restore our world?

Over a year after Lloyd told us about the US Department of Energy's plans to better enforce laws regulating shower water usage, it appears the laws still have no teeth. Alert TreeHugger tipster Ben sends us this